


Broomgate

by Tarimanveri (Monksandbones)



Category: Stargate SG-1, Stargate SG-1 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, British Columbia, Canada, Crack, Curling, Gen, Incomplete, almost a men with brooms crossover, dangerous levels of curling jargon, verging on RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-15 15:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monksandbones/pseuds/Tarimanveri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where they're all curlers (and Canadian).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Broomgate

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly written in 2005–2006 with heavy enabling and beta-reading from my friend A who lent me all her Stargate SG-1 DVDs and thought a curling AU would be hilarious after I explained curling to her; and with further heavy enabling and technical advice from my sister M, who unlike me is a real curler.
> 
> This is tragically unfinished and likely to remain unfinished, but I rediscovered it on an ancient hard drive and decided to release it into the wild, because it's the Stargate SG-1 Canadian curling AU the world has been waiting for, obviously.
> 
> As far as I know, the Squamish Granite Club doesn't exist (apologies to the very real Howe Sound Curling Club, the existence of which I have chosen to ignore). Despite a couple of brief references to actual curlers, no curlers were harmed in the making of this fic (nor is this really a Men with Brooms crossover).
> 
> The Brier Cup, to which this fic makes repeated reference, is Canada's national men's curling championship. Also, I've completely handwaved the fact that I'm pretty sure there absolutely are rules about men and women not playing on each others' teams (mixed teams are also a thing, but technically have to be two men and two women).

Jack O’Neill turned his back on the red doors and corrugated aluminum face of the Squamish Granite Club. He plunged his hands deep into the pockets of his leather jacket and stared out moodily over the deserted gravel of the parking lot.

“George, doesn’t Halifax remind you of something?” he asked, turning his head to look over his shoulder at his companion whose calculating gaze was still fixed on the roofline of the Quonset hut that housed the club.

“Does Ray Gould is getting his rink back together mean anything to you, Jack?” retorted George Hammond. “You and I are going inside and we are going to discuss this over a beer.” 

Jack turned slowly to face the doors of the club again. “If you’re paying,” he said.

George held the heavy door open for Jack. They cleaned their shoes on the brush in the vestibule and stepped into the building. Nothing had changed. The carpet was the same dingy brown, the fluorescent lights shone with the same harsh glare, and beyond the swinging doors and dirty windows lay the same four sheets of perfectly-textured ice. On them, the same eight houses spread out their crisp red-and-blue bull’s eyes, and the same sixty-four gleaming granite rocks sat quiescent in their corners. Jack took an unwitting step forward.

“I’ll get the beers,” said George. 

The bar was behind them, across the small room that served as the SGC’s cloakroom, members’ lounge, and viewing area. Next to the bar was the wall that proudly displayed the evidence of the club’s past triumphs. And there they were on the wall among the other smiling curlers of bygone days, in a photo that was already yellowing: Hammond, coach. Ferretti, lead. Boyd, second. Kawalsky, third. O’Neill, skip. His rink, in their Canadian team jackets, taunting him from their picture above the shelf holding their three still-polished trophies: two national championships and a world.

He turned back to the ice. George came back with four bottles of beer and motioned toward a table.

“Sit down, Jack,” he said.

Jack sat.

“I think you should think about making a comeback,” said George, passing him two of the bottles.

“And why would I want to do that?” said Jack. He opened his beer with a pop and threw the cap across the room in the general direction of the garbage can.

“Because Ray Gould is back with his original rink and you don’t want him to walk away again with what should have been yours.”

“And I should care what he does?” 

A swarm of giggling teenagers in matching kilts and tights burst through the front doors of the club. George leaned closer to speak into Jack’s ear. “You know as well as I do that you are the only skip in this country with a chance of stopping him.”

“George, it’s been four years.” Jack put his beer down on the table with a thump. “Our time is over.”

“No one else has as good a reason for putting him in his place as you, Jack,” said George.

The front doors opened again to admit a tired-looking young man with a briefcase in one hand and a broom in the other. The girls stopped giggling at once.

“He can eat the Brier for breakfast if he wants,” said Jack. He pushed back his chair. “I don’t care. I stopped caring four years ago...”

“O’Neill! Jack O’Neill,” someone behind Jack broke in. “Two Briers. Men’s World Champion five years ago. Lost in the finals…”

“Uh-uh,” said Jack, turning around and holding up a forbidding hand. “We don’t go there. Ever.”

“Sorry.” The speaker turned out to be the man with the briefcase. He looked like he wanted to disappear behind his floppy bangs.

“Do I know you?” asked Jack. Something about the hair suddenly seemed almost familiar.

“Daniel Jackson.” The young man held out his hand. Jack shook it.

“Jack O’Neill,” he said. 

“Daniel Jackson?” said George, abandoning his second beer and looking up. “Sit down. Out of Kamloops, weren’t you? Canadian Junior Men’s Champion a few years back but…”

Daniel looked even more embarrassed. “I’m uh, teaching now. English. And I, uh, coach the school teams.” He nodded his head in the direction of the girls now clustered on the other side of the windows on the strip of carpet beside the ice. They seemed to be primarily engaged in leaning on their brooms and chatting. “They’re not very enthusiastic.” He frowned.

“Then we shouldn’t be keeping you from practice,” said George, holding out his hand. “I’m George Hammond, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Daniel. “And believe me, they need more than practice.” 

“Mind if we stay and watch?” said Hammond.

“Go ahead, if you want. But I’m not sure why you would.”

Jack leaned toward George. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, under his breath.

“Jack here wants to watch,” said George to Daniel.

“George!” said Jack, standing up indignantly.

“I’ll uh, just go and get the girls started, shall I?” said Daniel, pointing at them. He was already creeping toward the doors that led to the ice sheets.

“You do that,” said George.

It was true that the girls weren’t very enthusiastic. Daniel spent several minutes arguing them onto the ice. By the time he was done he looked frazzled, but they began their practice, launching themselves from the hack in turn, sailing off down the ice, black kilts flying out behind them. Daniel went to stand with his broom in the house at the other end of the sheet, and they repeated the drill with rocks. The truth was they weren’t very good. Some of their rocks didn’t make the hog line; others slid through the house and bounced off the end of the sheet.

Jack discovered that he didn’t care. He found himself sitting down again next to George, watching intently. The rocks were gliding smoothly over the bumps of the dully-gleaming ice and it was mesmerizing.

“I hope it’s not the girls you’re staring at,” said George as Jack craned his neck to follow a particularly badly-thrown rock as it crossed from one sheet to the next. 

“Thirty-nine pounds of polished granite,” said Jack. “Perfection in motion.”

“I knew you’d come around, Jack.”

“I didn’t say anything, George.”

“You can’t live on your last winnings forever,” said George, reaching for Jack’s empty beer bottles.

“Fuddle-duddle.”

“Start picking your team, skip.”

~~

As far as George knew, Jack had gone into Vancouver the next day for the afternoon to buy a new power saw, and Jack liked it that way. That way, he was not buying himself a shiny new broom to replace the one he vaguely remembered chucking unceremoniously onto a drunken and despairing bonfire a few summers ago, not renting himself a pair of shoes at the office, and most emphatically not crouching down in the hack at the Squamish Granite Club on knees that were possibly not quite what they used to be, falling into a zen-like trance as he threw the heavy, gleaming rocks down the ice before him.

“Jack O’Neill,” called a voice from the other end of his sheet. 

Jack wobbled. His knees creaked. He looked up. Daniel Jackson had stepped once more into the breach, with his broom and briefcase, followed, this time, by five adolescent boys.

“Daniel Jackson,” Jack called back, gathering his last rock to him and sending it forth with determination. He stood up and slid behind it the length of the sheet of ice.

The boys, evidently the male counterparts of the previous day’s girls right down to skill level, began to take turns throwing their rocks. “Takeout weight, keep them going,” Daniel said to them, before he stepped onto the ice and slid over to Jack. 

“No offense,” Daniel said, looking down at the cluster of rocks in the house at his feet, “but I thought you’d given up curling.”

Jack lifted his broom and began corralling his rocks into their corners. He cocked his head back and looked at Daniel. “George Hammond thinks it’s time for a comeback.” 

“I take it you’re warming up to the idea?”

“You think?”

“Well, I hate to state the obvious,” said Daniel with an apologetic-looking wave of his hand, “but you are here for the second time in two days and you were throwing your rocks just now like every single one was the Holy Grail.”

“You throw a nice rock yourself, Mr. Jackson,” said Jack, resting his forearms on the end of his broom and leaning forward.

“That’s irrelevant,” Daniel said. He seemed affronted. “And you’re trying to change the subject. But just look at you. You obviously still love this game. Why not try for a comeback? Oh, and call me Daniel.”

“Well, Daniel, speaking of looking, you might want to look to your charges there,” said Jack, gesturing toward them with a jut of his chin. The boys were gathering rocks from the neighboring sheet and sending them rocketing down the ice at the ones already clustered at the opposite end.

“Guys, guys!” howled Daniel, hurrying back to his sheet. “Too hard! Four hundred and fifty dollars per rock!”

“I’ll talk to you when you’re finished,” Jack called after him.

“Another hour,” Daniel called back.

Jack had a beer waiting when Daniel came off the ice. “Sit down and drink up,” he said, passing it over.

Daniel sat. “I don’t usually drink beer,” he said. 

“You’ve been coaching teenagers. Drink up.”

“What did you want to talk to me about?” Daniel said slowly. His hand was on the cap of his beer, but he sounded suspicious.

“This has to stay real quiet,” said Jack, casting a glance around the lounge and noting the front door swinging shut behind the last of Daniel’s team. “But you’re right, I am planning a comeback. And for that I need to form a new rink.”

Daniel looked confused again. “What about your old one? You were great! If you hadn’t quit the four of you could have been legendary!” 

“They’ve moved on. Boyd retired and Feretti’s playing lead on Kawalsky’s new rink out of Victoria.”

“If you don’t play with them you’d have to play against them.”

Jack took a swig of his beer. “They’ll be tough competition. But I think they’ll understand.” For the first time in, well, a long time, Jack smiled at the thought of his old team.

“So, a new rink,” said Daniel, pushing his beer cap around on the table with an outstretched finger. “Why are you telling me this?”

“You throw a nice rock.”

“You already said that, and I already said it was irrelevant.”

“You throw a nice rock,” repeated Jack, this time with a little more emphasis. “Former Canadian junior men’s champion. Ringing any bells yet?”

“You can’t possibly be thinking… Former Canadian junior champion who fell apart at the worlds, remember?”

“Oh, but I am. Thinking, I mean.”

Daniel pursed his lips. He pushed his beer aside briskly, crossed his arms on the table, and leaned in. “I humiliated myself and arguably all of Canada at those world championships, Jack. If you get a rink together, it’s going to be the curling event of the century and if I’m on it…”

“If you’re on it, you can put that to rest, Daniel,” said Jack. “You don’t think they won’t rake up the details about what happened to me in Halifax?”

“So why are you doing it?”

“Ray Gould is getting his rink back together.”

“God!”

“Yes.”

There was a long pause. Two technicians appeared on the other side of the windows and began to sweep and scrape the silent expanse of ice as Jack and Daniel watched.

“So you’d like me to play for you?” Daniel said at last.

Jack tore his gaze away from where one of technicians was now waving a hose and scattering drops of water to build up the pebble on the freshly scraped ice, and looked at Daniel. “How does lead sound to you? No pressure, no strategy, just skill. Think you could handle that?”

“That sounds great, Jack,” said Daniel earnestly. “I’m… I’m really honoured.”

“Oh, cut that,” said Jack. “I’m happy to have you. And let me know if you happen to hear of anyone else decent who’s looking for a rink, would you?”

~~

“God, what are they playing?” said Daniel, running his hands into his hair to massage the back of his neck. He and Jack were sitting at the table in the lounge again, with a phalanx of drained and as-yet unopened beer bottles in front of them, watching the Thursday night Golden Oldies’ league.

Jack lifted his head from where he’d been resting it on his forearms on the table. “On the ice or on the sound system?” he groaned. Actually, the two or so dozen men and women on the ice curled curled very well, Jack had to give them that. 

Daniel shot him an unamused look. “On the sound system, obviously. The Langford rink on sheet three there are the pretty heavy favorites to win the senior women’s provincial playdowns,” he said, turning his attention momentarily back to the games in progress on the ice.

“So what do you reckon? Worst music yet?”

“Yes, definitely.” Daniel sighed. “To be honest, I think you should seriously consider looking a bit further afield for players. I mean, we’ve watched the SGC men’s league, women’s league, mixed league and now the seniors’ league, and nothing.”

“George has his feelers out. He’s got connections.”

“Hey, wasn’t he supposed to be here by now?”

“He isn’t missing much.”

“You’re telling me.”

“Who’s not missing much?”

“George,” Jack and Daniel said in chorus, sitting up and turning around to face him.

“You’re late,” said Daniel.

“You’ve been missing some truly magnificent DJ stylings, George,” said Jack, pulling out a chair and pushing forward a beer.

“Well, before I get too comfortable, Jack, do I have news for you,” said George, leaning on the back of the proffered chair.

“What kind of news?” Jack asked.

“Wonderful news. In fact, it should be coming through the front doors right about now. I’ve found you a third player.”

They all turned to the front doors as they swung open. George beckoned toward the table. “I’d like you both to meet Sam Carter,” he said. “Sam, this is Jack O’Neill and Daniel Jackson.”

“I’m pleased to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about both of you,” she said.

“You’re a woman,” said Jack.

Sam assumed an expression of tired annoyance. “Show me the rule where it says a woman can’t play on a men’s rink if she wants to.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Sam crossed her arms. “Do I look like I’m kidding?” 

“Weight,” said Jack, looking her up and down. She was tall, but not exactly what he would call solid. “Upper body strength,” he went on. “Getting on your broom. There’s this little thing called sweeping and it’s the reason men and women compete separately.”

“Um, Jack?” said Daniel tentatively, “I hate to interrupt this joyous spiritual connection you’re establishing here, but she’s right.”

“Right?”

“About playing with a men’s rink.”

“She’s right,” echoed Jack. “Riiiiight.” He turned back to Sam. “Where should I even start?” he asked.

“How about with, I played third on the Toronto rink that won the National Junior Women’s Championships three years in a row?”

“Okay, and why aren’t you playing with a female rink now?”

“I just moved back to Canada. I’ve been playing with a men’s rink in Tacoma for the past six years,” Sam said. “I assure you, I never held them back.”

“I’ve seen her play, Jack, and she’s a damn fine curler,” said George. “You’re going to consider her very carefully and I’m going to stay right here and make sure you do.”

“I’m still going to start her off sweeping,” said Jack.

~~

“So, what do you think?” said Sam the next day, sliding down the ice behind her final, precisely thrown rock and pulling up in the house next to Jack. “Am I good enough or do your testicles shrivel at the very thought of a woman who can play at your level?”

“Throws well, sweeps well, but doesn’t play well with others. We’ll have to work on that,” said Jack to the dull corrugated arch of the roof above.

“Yes?” said Sam, giving him a prodding, sidewise look as she scrubbed the lint off her broom. “Is that some sort of oblique way of telling me that you’re offering me a place on your rink?” 

“Third, I think,” said Jack, holding the door open for her.

“Thank…” Sam began.

“But there’s one last test,” Jack interrupted, as they rejoined Daniel and George at the table.

“What’s that, chest-thumping?” she asked, reaching for her jacket.

“Daniel,” said Jack, “be a gentleman and bring the good woman some beer…”

~~

“Well, I think the next step should be finding a way to watch the Gould rink play, but that’s just how I feel,” said Daniel from the corner of the sheet where he was feeding rocks to Jack. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re forgetting something,” said Jack, watching his shot settle into place at the top of the house. He crouched down in the hack and flipped up his next rock to clean the bottom. 

“Draw to the eight foot,” called Sam from the other end of the sheet as Jack put his rock back down on the ice.

Daniel took his place at the hog line. “Forgetting something?”

“Our fourth player,” said Jack, sliding toward him and releasing his rock with a gentle turn of the wrist. “Now, on! Hard! Haaaarrd!”

Daniel didn’t let it go. “I still think we should watch Gould play,” he said from deep in the house several throws later. Sam had the measuring stick out and was checking the accuracy of their latest shots. Jack, who was half-consumed with assessing the curl on the left-hand side of the ice, shot him a look.

“No, really,” Daniel went on hastily, stepping over the rocks clustered at his feet and coming over to stand with Jack at the hogline. “Look, I know we’re still short a player, but maybe it would help us get an idea of what we’re looking for. I mean, watch how they play. See how their style has evolved. Know the enemy and all that.”

Sam stood up. “I have to ask,” she said, still fingering the measuring stick, and casting one last calculating eye over the array of stones in the house, “but why the vendetta against Gould in particular? Why not Furbey or Martin or even Cutter?” 

Daniel looked at Jack. Sam caught the glance and looked inquiringly at Daniel. Jack straightened up and frowned.

“Jack,” said Daniel, “you’re going to have to talk about it sometime. I mean, my gruesomely short international curling career featured some of the worst skipping the Junior World Championships have ever seen. Put things in some perspective, here. So you were up in the tenth end with the hammer and Gould stole three and you lost. I mean, it was a bad loss and it was the Brier, but that’s an amazingly deep field. No one can win every year. I actually don’t understand what was so bad.”

“He got away with it, Daniel,” growled Jack. “He cheated and he got away with it then and he’s done it more than once since.”

“Wait, what? How do you know?”

“With all due respect,” said Sam, “it’s the Brier. How does anyone ‘get away with it’ at the Brier?”

Jack sighed. “You get away with it if you’re good, and don’t delude yourselves, he’s good. He’s a great curler and he had a great rink. He just used to load the deck sometimes when good wasn’t going to cut it.”

“But how?” Sam persisted.

“One of his sweepers burned the rock. On the seventh rock in the last end, just gave it a tiny nudge with his broom, I guess. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. It looked like a pick. An act of God, if you want. But there was nothing on the ice. And none of the officals saw anything.”

“Wait, then how can you be sure?” said Daniel, frowning.

“I watched every move that rink made on the ice after that,” said Jack. “Figured out what to watch for. He had a signal he made if he thought he was going to need that nudge, and the third had another he made to the sweepers if the shot wasn’t going to make it otherwise.”

He paused, remembering. 

“That’s abohorrent,” said Daniel. “When else?”

“That raise-takeout with the roll on the sixth rock in the eighth end of the World Championship semi-finals after he beat me for the Brier in Halifax. The draw through the port in the extra end at the provincial playdowns in ‘95. I’ve even seen it in skins games.”

“And he said he was retiring in 1996, but now he’s getting his old rink back together for what… wait, he’s planning a run at the Olympics, isn’t he?” gasped Sam.

Jack rubbed his hands over his face. “Fuck,” he said.

~~

A week later, Jack, Daniel, and Sam were crammed onto the end of a set of bleachers in the upper storey of the Penticton Curling Club watching Ray Gould wipe a Winfield rink off the ice.

“You were right, Jack. They’re good,” said Daniel, turning to him in concern.

“I know,” said Jack. He watched Gould’s perfectly-thrown last rock glide to a delicate stop precisely in front of the one opening that might have allowed the Winfield skip to access the four stones Gould’s rink had already laid down in a cluster around the button. 

“This is slaughter,” said Sam, with an appalled look at the scoreboard. “Why doesn’t Winfield fold?”

“In the fourth end?” said Daniel.

“Oh. Right,” said Sam.

They sank into glum silence. On the ice below, the end concluded with the Winfield skip making a sad little attempt at a truly hopeless takeout. The Gould rink counted five. The players pushed the rocks back into order and they began again.

“There’s got to be some way for us to beat them,” said Daniel.

“Trying to pull them into a takeout game is obviously not it,” said Sam, as Gould’s lead’s second rock slid tidily in behind the guard he’d just set. “Ouch,” she added, turning away when the Winfield skip placed his broom on the guard rock for the takeout rather than calling for a draw behind it to the button. 

Jack could have sworn he saw Gould’s eyes flash in triumph at his hapless counterpart’s mistake. 

“Maybe you ought to wear one of those kilt things, Sam,” he said. He jerked his head in the direction of Gould’s position at the other end of the sheet. “Distract him a bit. Throw off his mojo,” 

A large, muscular man who had been standing next to the end of the bleachers surveying the game with his arms crossed stirred and turned to them. “I do not believe the mojo of Ray Gould would be thrown off by a mere skirt,” he said, re-crossing his arms and frowning.

“That’s too bad,” said Jack. He turned back to Sam. “I still think you should wear one. It’d be hot.”

“In that case, are you sure it wouldn’t throw off your mojo, Jack?” said Daniel.

“Indeed,” said the big man, with a quirk of his eyebrow as he turned back to the game.

“Anyway, it’s pretty premature to quibble over what we’re going to wear before we’ve even got a full rink,” said Sam.

They all sank back into silence at that and turned their attention once more to the ice below them. Gould was showing every sign of stealing at least four, and the Winfield rink, clearly shaken, had missed two out of their previous five shots.

Daniel folded his arms. “You know, there is such a thing as mercy,” he said.

“I do not believe that is a word of which Gould has knowledge,” said the big man standing next to them.

Sam tore her attention away from the Winfield sweepers making their way down the ice with their rock and squinted up at him. “You seem to know a lot about the Gould rink,” she said suspiciously.

“Indeed.” The man inclined his head serenely. “I am the spare of the rink of Ray Gould.”

… &c.


	2. Broomgate (assorted later scenes)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are a couple of scenes that take place later in what I originally planned as a much longer story, in which the SGC's O'Neill rink wins the bonspiel and Gould and his rink get the comeuppance they deserve.

“So, team Jackets,” said Jack, stretching in his seat. “What do we think, kids?”

“I believe Gould has chosen what he calls tastefully understated metallics for the current season,” said Teal’c.

Sam had been staring meditatively at the steam rising from the mug of hot chocolate she had wrapped her hands around, and Daniel was taking the opportunity afforded by the interlude to mark worksheets, but they both snapped sharply to attention at “understated metallics” and Jack’s response was nearly lost in the jumble of protesting commentary.

“By which he really means tacky and gold…”

“…which is complete overkill, in my opinion…”

“…and I refuse to wear gold or anything otherwise metallic.”

Jack waited for the outburst to die down. “I was thinking of something a bit less flashy,” he said. “Black, or navy, or a nice subdued green.”

“I wouldn’t mind green,” said Sam. “With black pants?”

“Ah,” said Daniel, looking up with an evil grin from his marking, “but Sam, you’re going to wear a kilt for the benefit of our fearless leader, remember?”

“Yes, but I was hoping he didn’t,” said Sam.

...

 

… _And now, over to sports. Squamish Granite may be number one here in Kelowna, but what’s on everyone’s mind is the Gould rink’s shocking burned rock in the eleventh end. Officials thought they spotted some suspiciously fancy footwork on the part of Gould’s second, but they had to actually look at the building’s closed-circuit footage to determine what had happened as Gould continued to insist that the rock was clean. Martouf Lantash has more from the Kelowna Curling Club. Marty?_

_Well, Janet, I’m sure everyone there is as shocked as we are here, at what looks, pending investigation, like an instance of cheating by one of the top rinks in the country. In a discreet but disturbingly skillful move, Gould’s second nudged the rock with the very edge of the sole of his shoe. A sharp-eyed official caught the move this time but it raises the disturbing question: has Gould gotten away with this in the past? Curling aficionados countrywide must be remembering Gould’s unexpected and, some would say miraculous defeat of the O’Neill rink in the finals of Brier five years back_ …

Jack reached out, shut the TV off with a flick of the remote, and sank back, supremely satisfied into his chesterfield.


End file.
